


three times Neil almost said I love you

by R_Gunns



Series: Honey honey honey (Aftg ficlets) [3]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: 5+1 Things, Character Study, Clubbing, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kisses, M/M, Snapshots, except not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 23:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13351560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Gunns/pseuds/R_Gunns
Summary: “Neil,” he says, throwing his hands out to the table to steady himself for a moment until Neil is done, then using his new, closer proximity to flick Neil on the forehead. “Do you enjoy being as irritating as possible?”Only with you,Neil doesn’t say.





	three times Neil almost said I love you

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I have to get my sappy romantic feelings out somewhere. Listen to Troye Sivan's [My My My!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5TqNsr6YuQ) alongside this if you're feeling that.

3

The slow drag of alcohol through Neil’s body is giving him a warm buzz that, for once, is welcome. It’s his second year playing with the Foxes at Palmetto, and they’d just placed second to the Trojans. Neil is two – three – uh. A few shots in. He isn’t drinking away the pain like Kevin was trying before Jeremy caught his attention and dragged him away to the dance floor, but Andrew agreed to keep watch if Neil let himself have a little more than he usually does. So he does. They do.

Neil has his shots and Andrew sips his drink and they sit and watch the others drink and drink and let themselves be corralled into socialising with the team that just beat them, in a club they don’t know. Once everyone has filtered away to the dance floor or over to the bar to get more drinks, Neil slumps a little against the table, props his head up on one hand and looks at Andrew.

“So?”

When Andrew doesn’t answer, Neil occupies himself watching the beads of sweat that trickle down the back of Andrew’s neck, catching at his collar. A patch is starting to show on the back of his shirt where the fabric is clinging to his muscles. It’s summer, and they are in a club, and little wisps of hair are starting to curl at Andrew’s temples in a way that makes Neil want to do something impulsive. He can’t see Andrew’s expression – he’s looking out over the dance floor, keeping a vague eye on everyone. Old habits. But Neil thinks he can see a muscle twitch in Andrew’s neck, imagines the faux-serious line of his eyebrows, the micro-expressions sketched out in the corner of his mouth.

Neil hooks his foot around one of the legs of Andrew’s stool before he can think better of it. Flirts with the idea of dragging Andrew closer. Waits until Andrew turns his head at the vibration and raises a challenging eyebrow, a warning one, and Neil grins with his head still propped up on one hand while he drags Andrew’s stool towards him.

“ _Neil_ ,” he says, throwing his hands out to the table to steady himself for a moment until Neil is done, then using his new, closer proximity to flick Neil on the forehead. “Do you enjoy being as irritating as possible?”

 _Only with you_ , Neil doesn’t say. He frees his leg from the stool but leaves it close, pressed up against Andrew’s own. He’s tipsy enough that the heat of the club isn’t claustrophobic, and the layer of sweat that clings to his skin not an irritant but just another sensory curiosity that’s adding to the lazy arousal stirring in his gut. He thinks about how good Andrew’s fingers would feel on his skin.

“Only with you,” Neil says after a second, tongue made loose by the happy-giddy feeling that’s pressing at his peripheries. Andrew’s answering eye roll is so over the top that Neil’s own blur a little in sympathy, and he closes his eyes for a moment, riding the wave of – of dizziness, a little, but also that warm fondness that threatens to eat him up. When he opens them again Andrew is holding a bottle of water in his direction, concern not in his eyes but hidden away at the corner of his mouth, where no one but Neil will ever find it. The feeling doesn’t go away. Presses close against the back of his teeth.

Neil takes the water.

Later, back in their hotel room that Kevin is thankfully not coming back to, Neil sits perched at the end of their bed, shoes off, sort-of, trying to figure out if the weak sunlight peering through the curtains is nice enough on his skin to outweigh the throbbing headache it’s threatening to produce. Before he can decide, Andrew is pulling the curtains fully closed and coming over to stand in front of him.

“Do you want to share the bed?” He asks, serious as ever, careful with Neil like he is with the figurines he gives Betsy, precious and protected between strong hands. Neil hums a yes, knows they won’t be doing much, they never do when either of them are drunk, but happy to curl up with Andrew for as long as he wants it. By this point, he’s sobered up enough that he can get himself undressed without Andrew having to manhandle him, welcome as that may be, and after downing a bottle of water he curls up under the comforter and waits. Andrew goes through the process of checking the door is locked, brushing his teeth, texting Kevin to make sure he was definitely staying at Jeremy’s, getting into pajama pants and slipping off his arm guards.

Neil lets himself be lulled by the ambient sounds of Andrew moving about the room and the background sounds of the city outside, almost entirely asleep by the time Andrew slides under the covers. One of his hands find their way to Neil’s waist and Andrew’s little finger catches at the waistband of his shorts, brushing against bare skin. It’s a question that Neil doesn’t have to answer with words, just brings his own hand to rest over Andrew’s and lets himself be moved about as Andrew curls up behind him, hooking one leg over Neil’s and sliding their hands around to rest over his stomach, under his shirt. There’s a few minutes of shifting before they settle, and Neil hums happily when Andrew presses the briefest of kisses to the back of his neck.

That feeling is still there, still pressed up close behind his teeth, ready to spill messy words all over them both. But Neil is asleep before he can say them.

 

2

Once the words have made home in him it’s hard not to fiddle with them, tongue catching on syllables like raspberry seeds trapped between his molars. Neil doesn’t get drunk again for a while, the hangover from that last time enough on its own to deter him, but the risk of saying things he can’t take back stops him. Summer passes in a haze, days spent waiting out the worst of sun inside, the team splayed over various couches and beds and the floor, mostly, sweating and complaining and sweating some more. Neil is a little bored for the first time in his life, and he _loves_ it. The sheer novelty of time wasted brings a smile to his face often enough that the foxes start sending questioning looks in his direction, bemused but fond.

He tells Andrew about it on the roof one night, hands gesturing excitedly.

“-and even though I’d stopped it didn’t feel like it because I was still hiding, still scared, and – and now, I can just, be. With you, with everyone. Andrew I -”

Andrew’s hand is pressed over his mouth suddenly, interrupting what Neil had been about to say. Neil has a moment to panic about the absolute thoughtlessness of it, the ease with which the words had come forth, almost spilled over, then Andrew’s leaning in and kissing him breathless. The thoughts are long gone by the time Andrew pulls back, but the words are still there. He keeps his mouth shut, still on uneven ground.

Unsure of how Andrew might react if he said it, not sure that the sweet small thing in his chest could handle Andrew’s usual approach to anything serious in their relationship. But Andrew wouldn’t be so careless with him as to let him get hurt, not over that. And Neil isn’t brave, not always, so he allows himself this: gentle hands in Andrew’s hair, at his nape and by his temple, careful of the old scar from what feels like a lifetime ago. A kiss pressed off-centre, at the corner of his mouth where Andrew hides every fond smile, every smirk at Neil’s antics and frown at his pain. Andrew’s eye-rolls never deter him, not since he’d started tilting his head for the kisses, seeking it out as much as Neil did. Another one of the things that was theirs alone, to keep, to covet, to hold close.

He thinks he should feel guilty sometimes, at all of the tiny comforts he’s collected in his years since coming to Palmetto. But every silly inconsequential happiness adds up, and as the years pass he forgets the boy his mother tried to make him, never meant to have these things.

 

1

In the lead up to the Olympics, Neil is calm and certain and sure of their ability to win, right up until he isn’t. It’s in the minutes before they head to court, already dressed with stick in hand, that he loses his footing.

His breathing goes tight for a moment, and he’s lost in the anxiety for an endless minute before the adrenaline rushes up to meet it, to settle his jittery legs and even out his shoulders. He allows his thoughts to wander in that instant though, thinking about his other teammates, thinking about Kevin’s steady hands, about the cats at home and the old Foxes watching from all over the country, if not in the stadium. He thinks about Andrew. He thinks about the hip problems he’s had lately, about the new bed they’ve bought but not tried out yet. He thinks about that night, all those years ago, when those words had first threatened to spill over.

When the anxiety passes, and he’s calm once more, he looks over to where Andrew is strapping on his goalie gear with tape and socks and other paraphernalia scattered about him.

“Andrew,” Neil blurts out, waiting for him to look up. _I love you I love you I can’t believe we’re here together I want to be with you the rest of my life._ He wants to say it, wants to so bad he thinks it must be written across his skin, but instead he just says, “You’re amazing,” and waits for Andrew’s answering nod.

 

0

It had become a mantra of sorts for Neil, a tradition between them that had unsettled Andrew a little the first few times he’d done it, memories of Baltimore still fresh in his mind. But he understands why Neil needs it, why Neil wants Andrew to know that it wasn’t just said because he was walking towards his own death. And he’s come to expect it now, willingly conditioned into waiting for Neil’s words before a match the same way he’d allowed Neil’s silly little kisses, finds himself searching for them when they aren’t given, pressing up onto his tiptoes or tilting his head back when he’s sat down – always meeting in the middle. Bee would be proud.

Something is off about the way Neil says it this time though, his jaw twitching like he has something else he wants to say. Andrew trusts Neil to tell him anything important, so he doesn’t ask, only dips his head in acknowledgement and allows Kevin to herd them towards the court.

Later, under the white lights of the stadium and the suffocating press of a screaming crowd, Andrew’s eyes catch Neil’s mid-celebration – caught by his team before he could get over to the goal. His scars twist and curve with his mouth and his grin is unconsciously fierce in a way he never lets it be, his father’s son but only in this: in the red sweep of his hair pressed flat to his head by his helmet and sweat, and in the teeth, sharp as anything, canines bared like a wild thing. Andrew watches him extract himself from his teammates and start a slow jog in his direction, speeding up to a run as he gets closer and Andrew realizes in that moment, marvels at how not-new it feels, thinks that he just might –

“ _I love you!_ ” Neil says when he gets close enough that he doesn’t have to yell, then again when he slows to a halt with only centimeters between them, removing Andrew’s helmet that he’d forgotten to take off. “I love you, I love you, you’re amazing, we _won,_ Andrew, we won!”

And they have, and he does, and Andrew makes a decision, asks a question he hasn’t had to in a long time.

“Yes or no?”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments & feedback is always very much appreciated!
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://rrgunns.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
